In just a couple of weeks, kids will be heading back to school, which means the summer feeding program is coming to an end. The feeding program kicked off in June and provided more than 24,000 meals this summer. That's 10,000 more than last year. Officials with Chartwells K12 believe they were able to feed more hungry children this year thanks to their food truck and the support of the school board and community. "The need is there. Where the gap is how do we take the meals where the students are, and that's one area that I think is going to help increase the participation and make sure that we serve our community better than we have before," said Farai Sithole, the District Manager of Chartwells K12.

Today with the help of Cindy King, Chartwells Director of Dining Services and the staff at Chartwells the students at Pell elementary school had the opportunity to try some homemade ratatouille during all of their lunches. The dish was made from ingredients harvested right from the Pell gardens to celebrate “local food” week.

If your kid came home from Marysville High School hungry for vegetables, it's because of Chef Jet Tila.
The celebrity chef visited Marysville Schools on Tuesday to perform cooking demonstrations and teach students about nutrition and wellness. "Kids have to be exposed to real food and real cooking," Tila said. "We converted someone to broccoli today." … Students coming down the stairs for lunch had the option of stopping by a Chef Tila station in the cafeteria line. There, they could pick up Thai barbecue chicken, sweet and sour pork, Hawaiian chicken fried rice, steamed carrots and rice. Once everyone was seated, Tila took the stage to cook chicken fried rice with egg, soy sauce, ginger and garlic. … Tila's appearance

It's never too early to get kids to try new foods, especially fruits and vegetables! That's why Bay District Schools food service provider, Chartwells, held a farmers market Thursday at Southport Elementary School. The cafeteria was filled with all sorts of fresh fruit and vegetables. Classes rotated through receiving two printed dollars that they could use to purchase two items from the market. Each month Chartwells features a fruit or vegetable. This month is tomatoes so they dried some and put them out as samples as a new option for kids. "When the kids try something especially that they've never had before, you can see by their face that they are like 'wow!' and that's what we are trying to achieve, we want the satisfaction of them being happy and trying something new they've never had," said Bay District Chef Debroah DiPietrantonio.

Celebrity chef Jet Tila will be at Marysville High School on Tuesday for a "Modern Asian" menu event during all regularly scheduled lunch periods, according to a Marysville Public Schools news release. The chef also will be making special visits to district elementary schools during the event. The high school event is open to all students and will feature school cafe-specific recipes and Tila's dishes for kindergarten through 12th-grade students. Students will be able to take home his recipes and meet with the chef and have an opportunity to take selfies with Tila. … The event is sponsored by Marysville Public Schools and Chartwells School Dining Services.

We all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that's why the food service company for the Wichita Falls ISD is working hard to get students to eat before the bell rings. WFISD is making sure that happens in a number of ways. … "We offer fresh fruit every day," said Carrie Richardson, the executive chef. "We also offer cereal bars, yogurt parfaits, and muffins." … "If you just think about the mindset of teenagers or if you think back to when we were teenagers are we more apt to think that we need something that early in the morning or is the goal to get to school," said Sarena Glenn, a dietitian.

At Hillsdale’s Davis Middle School, students are treated to some new tastes at an annual Health Fair. At the last event, Food Director Laura Call said she likes receiving feedback to possible introduction in the menus. …Chef John Ruemenapp, Harper Creek food service director, brought in some exotic fruit with samples of dragon fruit smoothies, pomegranate, black-berry lemonade and passion fruit parfaits. Chris Rakowski, district manager for Chartwells, was on hand to help introduce some spicy foods like buffalo cauliflower, pickled cabbage and pickled watermelon.